The trailer for the sci-fi actioner 65 featured what the marketing team surely hoped would be the biggest draw: dinosaurs! But not only did that not work in the studio’s favor, it also pissed off 65’s directors, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Beck and Woods (co-writers of A Quiet Place) sat down to discuss the release of 65, which hasn’t exactly made a roar at the box office or with critics. On the move to reveal that the movie was set 65 million years ago and featured dinos, the directors strongly disagreed with how Sony handled the marketing. As Scott Beck put it, “The whole pitch for the script, even the script itself, doesn’t reveal what the concept is until 15 or 20 pages or minutes in. It was something that we had talked about early on, but at the same time, the dinosaurs are kind of the marquee of what the movie is.” He added, “We shot this film though trying to keep that [dinosaur] secret as much as possible, without it leaking out onto the Internet.”
Maintaining secrets about a major studio movie is a difficult task (just ask Marvel!), but Sony’s marketing decision to spill the dinosaur aspect of 65 in the trailer/poster as opposed to letting it be a first act reveal does illustrate how important opening weekend remains in the industry. Adam Driver leading a non-sequel may not be a massive draw, but a T-Rex? That’s a #1 movie! Except, 65 only opened at $12.5 million on a $45 million budget…Oops!
On the potential for 65’s legacy, Beck said, “Our hope is that there’s somebody watching 65 down the line and they’re totally divorced from what the marketing is. So maybe it will still be a bit of a discovery for them.” As far as rediscovering it down the road, well, that seems like wishful thinking. The ironic part is that if people do revisit 65 years later, it will likely be the dinosaurs that sell them on it.
Did you see 65? Do you think the 65 marketing was handled poorly on the movie? Let us know your take in the comment section below!
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